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Consumer health information and the not-for-profit health agency.

Driven by increasing consumer demand, not-for-profit health agencies are responding by providing accurate, current information about the disorders they deal with. A case history of the information service at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the role of the health sciences librarian in the development of such information centers is described. The librarian, as information provider in the health agency setting, obtains professional advisory support, thus assuring delivery of the most responsible information to the constituency represented by the organization. An overview of the decision-making process for development of such a service is provided, including a description of the Cuadra STAR integrated online system. This system offers an infinite number of databases with immediate access to cross database searching of pertinent internal files and standard library records. A random survey of consumers, based on questioning repeat callers, has indicated an overwhelmingly positive response to this service.

Community Participation↗

Special programs in medical library education, 1957-1971. I. Definition of the problem and research design.

This report discusses the background and design of a study on special programs of education for medical librarianship in the United States. Between 1957 and 1971, 238 persons completed special programs in medical librarianship. Since little information has been available concerning the occupational success of these individuals, the study was undertaken (1) to determine the nature and distinguishing characteristics of the special programs of education for medical librarianship in the United States and (2) to provide some quantitative evidence of the value of those programs by studying a group of professional medical librarians who have had specialized training and a group of practicing medical librarians who have not had specialized training and comparing and correlating the data with regard to selected characteristics. THE FINDINGS OF THE STUDY WILL BE PRESENTED IN THREE FUTURE REPORTS: (1) a descriptive analysis of the programs; (2) a description of the characteristics of all former trainees in medical librarianship who responded to a questionnaire and a discussion of their reactions to their training programs; and (3) a comparison, based on selected characteristics, of a group of former trainees who are currently employed in medical libraries with a group of medical librarians who did not go through special training programs.

Financing, Government↗

Evaluation of a clinical medical librarian program at the Yale Medical Library.

A clinical medical librarian (CML) program in a large university-based teaching hospital setting is viewed by the majority of clinicians as education-oriented, with slightly fewer clinicians viewing it as patient care oriented. The CML service has been utilized for research purposes only when it is clear that case-relevant information can evolve into research intended to have "clinical" impact. This study reports the results of a questionnaire circulated among clinicians receiving CML support by a large medical school library. Results indicate that (1) the CML effected a change in information-seeking behavior by the clinicians--they obtained information that would not have been available to them if the CML had not been present in patient-management conferences; (2) relevancy of information provided by the CML was judged by the clinicians to be very high; (3) the accuracy of the CML's search, coupled with the rapidity of delivery, was found to be highly satisfactory; (4) acceptance of the CML within the patient care setting was acknowledged by the majority of clinicians, who contact the CML in-hospital and overwhelmingly prefer to do so; and (5) there was no statistically significant variation in the manner in which different medical specialties use the services of a CML. These findings justify implementation of a clinical medical librarian program, on a modified basis, as an additional service to already existing reference services offered by a large medical school library.

Connecticut↗

Medical library support in rural areas.

Physicians in rural areas often feel professionally isolated due to lack of access to medical center services, particularly library services. To test the need for and use of medical library services, an experimental program was established for physicians in southeastern Kentucky. Physicians were given a toll-free number to call for assistance or to make requests, and persons in two rural locations were trained in the use of basic library reference sources. A communication procedure to a university medical center was established to help patrons obtain information. Evaluation of the service showed that users were much more satisfied with the availability of medical library resources.

Kentucky↗

Nursing educator's satisfaction with library facilities.

This study examined nursing faculty perceptions of the importance of adequate library facilities and their satisfaction with them. Library facilities ranked highest in importance among all job characteristics studied, with faculty who had been most productive in terms of publication assigning the highest value to them. A moderate level of satisfaction was found. Faculty most satisfied with library facilities were those teaching in large schools of nursing with graduate programs and open organizational climates and those who were less well educated and generally satisfied with their positions.

Consumer Behavior↗

[Scientific information of health personnel: an approach to the sources, access, costs and research].

OBJECTIVE: To study what general sources of information health professionals working in primary care use, their access to them, expenditure incurred in health information and whether they do research and publish it. DESIGN: A descriptive crossover study using an anonymous questionnaire. SETTING: Primary care. PARTICIPANTS: Doctors, paediatricians, nurses and midwives working in the primary care field in Area 13 of the Community of Valencia. 163 out of 255 people polled replied (63.9% participation). MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The main sources of information favoured are courses and clinical sessions. 83.5% of professionals had done some course or attended a congress or workshop over the two previous years. 78.9% of staff had needed to look for a book or magazine outside their own library and mainly looked outside the Health Centres. 20.8% spent no money on health information. 34.4% had done research work: 24 doctors and 9 nurses had published. 14.7% felt supported always or often by their health area to do research. 64% did not have a wordprocessor and 71% did not have a library. CONCLUSIONS: The staff surveyed prefer courses and clinical sessions as their sources of information, which might imply little active searching for information. They believe that they need material and information resources for research work, and that incentives must be offered. Workplaces contain few sources of information.

Adult↗

A library-based bioinformatics services program.

Support for molecular biology researchers has been limited to traditional library resources and services in most academic health sciences libraries. The University of Washington Health Sciences Libraries have been providing specialized services to this user community since 1995. The library recruited a Ph.D. biologist to assess the molecular biological information needs of researchers and design strategies to enhance library resources and services. A survey of laboratory research groups identified areas of greatest need and led to the development of a three-pronged program: consultation, education, and resource development. Outcomes of this program include bioinformatics consultation services, library-based and graduate level courses, networking of sequence analysis tools, and a biological research Web site. Bioinformatics clients are drawn from diverse departments and include clinical researchers in need of tools that are not readily available outside of basic sciences laboratories. Evaluation and usage statistics indicate that researchers, regardless of departmental affiliation or position, require support to access molecular biology and genetics resources. Centralizing such services in the library is a natural synergy of interests and enhances the provision of traditional library resources. Successful implementation of a library-based bioinformatics program requires both subject-specific and library and information technology expertise.

Computational Biology↗

Departmental libraries: curse or blessing?

Communication patterns and working relationships between large health sciences libraries and departmental libraries are examined and discussed. The results of a telephone survey to obtain information on the experiences of twenty-one large New York metropolitan area health sciences libraries with their departmental libraries are reported. Discussion includes the experiences of Columbia University's Augustus Long Health Sciences Library with departmental libraries within the Columbia/Presbyterian Medical Center (C/PMC). A mediated survey of C/PMC departmental libraries and over thirty years of cooperation with some of these departments are reported. The potential detrimental effects of departmental libraries are acknowledged, but the substantial positive benefits of cooperation and ways to achieve this cooperation are emphasized.

Attitude↗

Library weeds.

Weeding is essential to the efficient operation of medical libraries and should be conducted in spite of certain barriers that exist. The mechanics of weeding are simple, and the criteria are widely known. A questionnaire survey of ninety-four medical school libraries reveals that weeding is most often shared by professional staff members, that weeding is done primarily when space is needed, and that librarians when weeding do not as a rule seek the advice or assistance of users or the Library Committee.

Books↗

Planning for a library system: Connecticut Regional Medical Program.

A formal medical library system is developing nationally to improve library service, but not all users or even all librarians are alert to the need. The main stimulus seems to come from federal money and from leaders at the top, rather than from the small local library and its user, yet progress depends on participation at all levels. Planning for a state-wide medical library system as part of the Connecticut Regional Medical Program began with a survey of the state's medical library resources, which led to a grant request for operating funds to strengthen reference and inter-library loan service in Connecticut and to begin a training and consultation program for medical librarians in the state. These activities are intended to expand and intensify in Connecticut those back-up services provided for all of New England by the New England regional medical library service at the Countway Library in Boston and also are related to the other Regional Medical Program activities planned for Connecticut.

Connecticut↗

Information-seeking behavior of health professionals in Hong Kong: a survey of thirty-seven hospitals.

Shortly after the establishment of Hong Kong's Hospital Authority (HA) in 1990, ten library service networks supported by the Library Information Systems (HALIS) were established to pool resources. A survey was undertaken to investigate the information-seeking behavior of health professionals working in thirty-seven public hospitals, examine their information needs, assess user satisfaction with and the impact of library services (including HALIS), and examine why hospital libraries sometimes fail to meet user needs. The findings revealed disparate use patterns among different groups of health professionals and confirmed that medical staff were most satisfied with the library collections and services. The nurses and hospital executives were found to be underserved. They needed information not only for work-related reasons but also to support self-study and development. The new HALIS service was neither well known nor widely used, especially among nurses. The findings provided valuable measures of performance for comparing different hospitals and assessing changes over time. Survey results also highlighted areas in which improvements are needed, such as collection enhancement, promotion and user training, and assessment of the impact of library service on patient care. Subsequent developments in these directions have led to increased awareness and use of library services and confirmed the direction of strategic plans for growth.

CD-ROM↗

Using SERVQUAL in health libraries across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.

This study provides the results of a survey conducted in the autumn of 2001 by ten NHS library services across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. The aim of the project was to measure the service quality of each individual library and to provide an overall picture of the quality of library services within the south-west peninsula. The survey was based on SERVQUAL, a diagnostic tool developed in the 1980s, which measures service quality in terms of customer expectations and perceptions of service. The survey results have provided the librarians with a wealth of information about service quality. The service as a whole is perceived to be not only meeting but also exceeding expectations in terms of reliability, responsiveness, empathy and assurance. For the first time, the ten health library services can measure their own service quality as well as benchmark themselves against others.

Benchmarking↗

The library from the nursing educator's point of view.

Libraries are accessible to faculties of schools of nursing but tend not to be fully utilized by them. The author describes the results of her surveys of nursing literature concerning libraries and one faculty's opinions and knowledge about its school library. Suggestions are made for assisting nurse educators and students to use the library to its fullest extent.

Education, Nursing↗

The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries Annual Statistics: an exploratory twenty-five-year trend analysis.

This paper presents an exploratory trend analysis of the statistics published over the past twenty-four editions of the Annual Statistics of Medical School Libraries in the United States and Canada. The analysis focuses on the small subset of nineteen consistently collected data variables (out of 656 variables collected during the history of the survey) to provide a general picture of the growth and changing dimensions of services and resources provided by academic health sciences libraries over those two and one-half decades. The paper also analyzes survey response patterns for U.S. and Canadian medical school libraries, as well as osteopathic medical school libraries surveyed since 1987. The trends show steady, but not dramatic, increases in annual means for total volumes collected, expenditures for staff, collections and other operating costs, personnel numbers and salaries, interlibrary lending and borrowing, reference questions, and service hours. However, when controlled for inflation, most categories of expenditure have just managed to stay level. The exceptions have been expenditures for staff development and travel and for collections, which have both outpaced inflation. The fill rate for interlibrary lending requests has remained steady at about 75%, but the mean ratio of items lent to items borrowed has decreased by nearly 50%.

Annual Reports as Topic↗

Factors affecting the diffusion of online end user literature searching.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to identify factors that affect diffusion of usage of online end user literature searching. Fifteen factors clustered into three attribute sets (innovation attributes, organizational attributes, and marketing attributes) were measured to study their effect on the diffusion of online searching within institutions. METHODS: A random sample of sixty-seven academic health sciences centers was selected and then 1,335 library and informatics staff members at those institutions were surveyed by mail with electronic mail follow-up. Multiple regression analysis was performed. RESULTS: The survey yielded a 41% response rate with electronic mail follow-up being particularly effective. Two dependent variables, internal diffusion (spread of diffusion) and infusion (depth of diffusion), were measured. There was little correlation between them, indicating they measured different things. Fifteen independent variables clustered into three attribute sets were measured. The innovation attributes set was significant for both internal diffusion and infusion. Significant individual variables were visibility for internal diffusion and image enhancement effects (negative relation) as well as visibility for infusion (depth of diffusion). Organizational attributes were also significant predictors for both dependent variables. No individual variables were significant for internal diffusion. Communication, management support (negative relation), rewards, and existence of champions were significant for infusion. Marketing attributes were not significant predictors. CONCLUSIONS: Successful diffusion of online end user literature searching is dependent on the visibility of the systems, communication among, rewards to, and peers of possible users who promote use (champions). Personal image enhancement effects have a negative relation to infusion, possibly because the use of intermediaries is still seen as the more luxurious way to have searches done. Management support also has a negative relation to infusion, perhaps indicating that depth of diffusion can increase despite top-level management actions.

Diffusion of Innovation↗

Ensuring quality Website redesign: the University of Maryland's experience.

The Web Redesign Committee at the Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS/HSL) of the University of Maryland was formed to evaluate its site and oversee the site's redesign. The committee's goal was to design a site that would be functional, be usable, and provide the library with a more current image. Based on a literature review and discussions with colleagues, a usability study was conducted to gain a better understanding of how the Website was used. Volunteers from across the campus participated in the study. A Web-based survey was also used to gather feedback. To complement user input, library staff were asked to review the existing site. A prototype site was developed incorporating suggestions obtained from the evaluation mechanisms. The usability study was particularly useful because it identified problem areas, including terminology, which would have been overlooked by library staff. A second usability study was conducted to refine the prototype. The new site was launched in the spring of 2000. The usability studies were valuable mechanisms in designing the site. Users felt invested in the project, and the committee received valuable feedback. This process led to an improved Website and higher visibility for the library on campus.

Computer Communication Networks↗

Preparing librarians to meet the challenges of today's health care environment.

OBJECTIVE: Refine the understanding of the desirable skills for health sciences librarians as a basis for developing a training program model that reflects the fundamental changes in health care delivery and information technology. DESIGN: A four-step needs assessment process: focus groups developed lists of desirable skills; the research team organized candidate skills into a taxonomy; a survey of a random sample of librarians and library users assessed perception of importance of individual skills; and the research team framed, as a unifying hypothesis, a training model. SURVEY METHODS: The survey was distributed to random samples of 150 librarians, stratified by type of library, and 150 library users, stratified by type of use. A non-randomized sample was obtained by mounting the survey on a World Wide Web server. The survey instrument included 96 distinct skills organized into 13 categories. Respondents rated the importance of each skill on a Likert scale and provided a separate ranking by identifying the ten most important skills for the profession. RESULTS: Among the participants, 51% of librarians and 36% of library users responded to the survey. All categories of skills were rated above the midpoint of priority on the Likert scale. All groups rated personality characteristics and skills as most important, with an understanding of the health sciences, education, and research being rated comparably to technical skills. CONCLUSIONS: Health sciences librarians need a new educational model that provides them with broad-based tools to discover new roles and new resources for acquiring individual skills as the need arises. A unifying training model would involve trainees in developing their learning plan in a way that promotes proactive inquiry and self-directed learning, and it would rotate the trainees through projects to provide skills and an understanding of end-user work processes.

Curriculum↗